Scientifically referenced blog about healthy eating

Moving to a New CrossFit Box

Since I recently defended my doctoral dissertation, I decided that my boyfriend had waited long enough and moved out of Pittsburgh to live with him. He has been attending a CrossFit box of his own, so I decided to join that one, CrossFit Acernus. All CrossFit boxes are quite independent, so I was curious to try out a different style. There were major differences between the two.

1. CrossFit Pittsburgh is an old school box. It’s dirty, and old, and the roof leaks, and there’s rust, etc. Probably because it’s one of the first 50 CrossFit boxes in the US. CrossFit Acernus is much newer and cleaner. I found that strange at first. I appreciated the dirty goodness that was CrossFit Pittsburgh. But believe me, I’m getting used to the new equipment and not going home covered in filth.

2. CrossFit Pittsburgh was MUCH bigger. Not in space, but in the class sizes and the amount of members. Makes sense since Pittsburgh is a much bigger place than Lebanon, PA. Yesterday, for the first time, I was the only member in a class. It was awkward since the coach only watched me, and no one was around to keep me motivated. I never had a class smaller than 10 in Pittsburgh. However, I like the class sizes at Acernus most of the time. The class size is usually around 6. This size is nice because it almost forces people to get to know each other.

3. CrossFit Acernus has cardio classes. I LOVE THEM. They are usually 1 hour long, and contain no lifting. It’s just straight sweat and heavy breathing for 60 minutes. They offer cardio classes once per weekday. They are more for people who don’t want to bulk at all, just lose weight. Don’t get me wrong – I love to lift. But I want to maintain my weight, as well. I want to have somewhat of a feminine figure. So I go to cardio class 3x per week, and regular CrossFit classes 2-3x per week. CrossFit Pittsburgh didn’t have a cardio class per se, but Saturdays there were similar to an Acernus cardio class.

Those are the major differences. One very nice thing is that both boxes have great, knowledgeable, and friendly coaches. Also, people who CrossFit are consistently friendly people. I’ve never met anyone at either box that I didn’t like.

Something very intriguing about CrossFit that I have noticed is I can’t tell how old people are. There is a couple who attend CrossFit Acernus cardio classes who I thought were in their late thirties, early forties. They are 55! 55! I can’t believe when these people friend me on facebook. I think they are younger than me, and they turn out to be almost 40! I guess that goes to show that exercise leads to slower aging. I hope it works that well for me.